When the Dust Settles
by Steph's Puppet
Summary: Bruce and Diana discuss the potential repercussions of Superman's return. Set after the Justice League film, but written prior to the film's release so assumptions are made as to the plot of the film. One-shot. Can be read as a standalone or as Part 2 in my 'Downtime' series.


**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of the characters or source material referenced in this piece of work. This is a non-profit piece of work made solely for entertainment.**

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When the Dust Settles

It was a nightmare of bullets and machine gun fire that woke Diana from her previously peaceful slumber. Bleary-eyed, she reached blindly across the luxuriously soft sheets to find an empty space where she had expected to meet warm skin. The absence of Bruce, the man she had grown to care for, made her sit up abruptly without thinking, and ignited a fresh pain in her ribs where a lucky foe had managed to land a blow several hours ago. Giving herself a moment to recover, she glanced around the room for any clues as to her companion's whereabouts. Finding none, she gingerly climbed off the bed letting the sheets fall away from her body.

Uncaring of her nudity as the proud Amazon she was, Diana moved across the room and picked up her armour which had been discarded on the floor some hours ago. She considered it for a moment before carefully folding it up and placing it on a nearby armchair. Instead, she opened the door of an antique wardrobe and removed a man's shirt. Slipping it on, she left the room and went in search for her wayward lover.

Sometime later, having searched a few other rooms, Diana found Bruce sitting pensively in the Batcave and staring absently at a cooling cup of coffee. He turned as she walked in, as though he had been expecting her. In the short amount of time that they had known each other, she had never been able to sneak up on him, no matter how quiet she tried to be. Skimming her gaze across the monitors she could see crime scene reports centred around the murder of a local drug dealer, but not anything pressing that she could imagine would wake him up in the middle of the night with a feverish desire to work.

"Can't sleep?" Bruce asked.

"Nightmare." She replied dismissively. She'd had them on and off ever since the war, and as with many aspects of Man's World she'd grown used to it and no longer dwelt on it too much. "Why are you still awake? With your schedule, I thought you would take full advantage of a night off." With no other chairs by the monitors, she perched herself on the desk in front of him.

"I've had a lot on my mind." He confessed. "I decided that if I was going to be awake all night I could at least be productive." He gestured at the screens. "A police informant connected to the Penguin has been killed, I think it might be connected to a case I'm working on."

One of Diana's eyebrows quirked up. He hadn't seemed to be working when she had walked in. "Any progress?"

He grimaced. "No. I haven't been able to concentrate."

"Something is clearly bothering you." She pointed out, "It might help if you talked about it."

She felt a momentary and uncharacteristic worry that it was _her_ he was having doubts about. They had been dancing around each other ever since that very first look at Luther's party, and everything between them had only come to a head in the last few days. With the adrenaline wearing off, he might be reconsidering how suited they were to one another.

While the theory was certainly plausible, Diana couldn't help but think that it was something else on his mind. He certainly didn't look uncomfortable at her presence or the fact that occasionally her bare leg would brush against him, he just looked slightly troubled and distracted.

"It's _him_." Bruce said quietly. "He's back and I don't know what to do about it." He didn't have to say the person's name, Diana knew exactly who he meant and of the conflict that was currently raging in him.

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Hours after he had tiredly curled around the Amazon princess, Bruce awoke with an uncomfortable tension in his muscles and an old worry on his mind. As though she could sense his unease, Diana shifted in her sleep and a frown marred her lovely features. Unwilling to disturb her further, he carefully removed himself from her person with practiced ease. He pulled on a shirt and some shorts, and quietly slipped out of the room.

With no way for him to directly address the issue that was at the forefront of his mind, and no one awake to bounce ideas off, he had sought to distract himself with some casefiles to little effect. Diana's arrival had been an unexpected blessing, and without preamble she had offered a sensitive ear to his concerns.

"It was a surprise. Him coming back like that." She said sympathetically, and then frowned doubtfully "Are you not happy about it?"

"Of course." He replied immediately, a touch of defensiveness in his voice. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I wouldn't judge you if you had some reservations." She replied, directly addressing what he hadn't said. "I know you weren't on the best of terms before we fought Luther's monster."

He snorted. "That's putting it lightly." And that was the heart of the problem. When he and Clark Kent set aside their differences to fight a common enemy, he had not been entirely capable of dismissing all his reservations about the Superman. Concerns about a supremely powerful being capable of destroying entire cities did not disappear overnight because he was able to acknowledge the basic humanity of the man.

"His mother seemed to think you were getting on better."

"I told her we were friends." Bruce shook his head ruefully. "It seemed a kinder thing to say than to admit we had been trying to kill each other only recently."

The lie had tasted bitter on his tongue, and he had not had the heart to correct her at the funeral. Martha Kent had thought he had paid for the funeral out of kindness, when in fact it had been done out of guilt. With hindsight, he should have realised that Luther was playing them both. That tense and clearly engineered meeting filled with Luther's childish double meanings had been telling enough. Unfortunately, his own prejudices had clouded his judgement, and even Alfred's pleas for him to give Superman the benefit of the doubt had gone unheard. That decision had cost Clark Kent's life, or so it had seemed.

"You don't trust him." Diana said softly, bringing his attention back to her.

"No. I don't."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Do you trust me?" She asked.

He paused as he mulled it over. He would not do her the disservice of giving her a dishonest reply that he had not thought through. "I do." He said eventually, causing her to frown.

"I am capable of the same scale of destruction as he is." She cocked her head to one side and regarded him intensely. "Why do you trust me and not him?"

"If you aspired for world destruction, I think you would have done it a long time before now." He let his lips curl into a smile as he teased her, which would have earned him a kick to the shin if he had not managed to catch her foot in time. She mock glared at him, as he released her with a smile. "It's not just that." He acknowledged seriously. "I don't buy his butter-wouldn't-melt naïve farm-boy persona. It just doesn't match up with what I know he has done and is capable of. With you there was never any pretence."

"The personality of Bruce Wayne does not match the actions of the Batman, either." Diana pointed out.

He shook his head. "I've never pretended to be a saint. My deception is necessary. The Batman cannot be human. He must be an incorruptible symbol to be feared. It would not be as effective if it were known that the Batman is an ordinary citizen with friends and a job." The topic peaked his curiosity on a related subject. "Why do you keep a civilian identity?" He asked.

She shrugged. "Habit. I wanted to have an ordinary life outside of saving people. Maybe Clark is the same."

"Perhaps." Bruce conceded.

"It is difficult for me to judge him." Diana admitted. "I had precious little interaction with him before his death, and everything else I know is from what I have heard on the news and what you have told me."

"I met him several times." Bruce told her. "None of those meetings particularly endeared me towards him." His tone hardened. "Especially when he disrupted my work and attempted to intimidate me into retiring."

"He did what?!" Her shock was evident.

"And seriously damaged my car in the process." He added grumpily, looking up in annoyance when he heard her choke out a laugh. At his stony expression, she couldn't help but let out another giggle and with the dam broken she was unable to stop herself from laughing uncontrollably.

"It's not funny!" He tried to sound stern, but couldn't stop his own smile as he placed his hands on her waist to steady her and prevent her from losing her balance.

"I'm sure you could afford to repair it." She told him once she had managed to control herself, and then smiled impishly. "Your net worth has been imparted to me often by concerned parties, I'm sure a new car will only put a small dent in the billions."

"Those billions won't be around for much longer if you meta humans keep damaging my property." He said darkly, but didn't complain when she moved off the desk to place herself on his lap, being careful to mind his wounded shoulder.

"There does seem to be rather more of us than I first thought when I came to man's world." She commented agreeably.

"There's always been metas." Bruce replied. "Gotham is full of them. Superman seems to have emboldened some to come out into the light." She stilled against him.

"I didn't know there were metas in Gotham."

He nodded. "A great many. I've been dealing with them for years. The GCPD and local government tries to keep it quiet to avoid causing too much panic."

"But if that's the case, then why are you so concerned about Superman?"

"Because I know the metas in Gotham." He told her. "I know their weaknesses and how to exploit them. With Superman, the only weakness I could find was his reaction to that green rock."

She nodded acceptingly, and then turned towards him curiously. "You don't know _my_ weaknesses."

"Not yet." He agreed seriously. "That's why I'm dating you, it's to keep you on side until I know how to defeat you."

"It has been very effective." She commented brightly. "I shall not destroy you yet, it would upset Alfred." She grinned widely. "You should have tried wining and dining Superman, it might have saved a lot of trouble." She teased, and laughed as she saw him wince.

"And face the wrath of Lois Lane? No thank you."

"He does seem…" she hesitated, trying to think of the right way to phrase it, "disturbingly normal."

He sighed heavily. "That's my worry. Even if his intentions are currently good, that could change. I've known men like him- idealists not used to humanity's cruelty. They can be broken if pushed too far. Would his benevolence survive Lois Lane or Martha Kent's murder?"

"I don't know." Diana said. "You're right, of course. People like him have a lower breaking point than people like us. We've already been pushed to the brink but have managed to come back." She shifted uncomfortably. "Do you still have any of that green rock?"

He nodded heavily. "I've been keeping an eye out for it for a while, and have managed to collect a fair amount. I did it originally for safekeeping, in case another of those creatures came about. Now I'm glad I did."

"Better to be safe than sorry." She finished off humourlessly.

"Exactly."

"Until that day comes, we would be fools to not have him as an ally." Diana said, and Bruce nodded in agreement. "But if that day does come," she continued with a hard voice, "you have me now. And we have the League. You won't have to face him alone again."

They were a good team, the two of them. Their similarities and differences complemented each other. Both of them were warriors, she was born one and he had forged himself into one. With her strength and his brilliant mind, they would be difficult pair to beat even without the rest of the League.

Bruce looked at her with ineffable depths of gratitude, and reached an arm around her waist to pull her close. She embraced him back, and met him halfway for a chaste and comforting kiss before slightly pulling away.

"Do you feel better now you've got that off your chest?" Diana asked, her hand lightly rubbing at his uninjured shoulder.

He nodded, and she could feel that some of the tension that had tightly coiled his muscles had started to dissipate. "Come back to bed?" She suggested, standing up and offering him her hand. Bruce took it without hesitation, and they returned together to the room they had both separately left.

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 **Author's Note: Can be read as a continuation of my previous one-shot titled 'Proximity' (check it out on my profile if you haven't already). As with 'Proximity', this was written prior to the release of 'Justice League' so it likely will not be canon once the film comes out. I've mostly written this to try to address some of the issues with Batman's dialogue in BvsS. Hope you enjoyed!**


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